Benutzer Blog:IrasCignavojo/The Game, the Brand and the Product Life Cycle
Classic marketing of a product is driven by the thought of the product life cycle. Everything, it is assumed, has four phases (and or subsets thereof): * Introduction * Growth * Maturity * Decline It can easily be argued that the Project Myra went through all those four phases within the first decade of existence, from 1982 to 1992. Why, then, did it not end then, as others products of the time have? And what can we learn from that? (Read Breaking free from the product life-cycle in the Harvard Business Review for more.) * Introduction was 1982 as a play-by-mail (PBM) game fantasy world, which also served as a backdrop for a classic pen&paper role-playing game (RPG) like the up-and-coming Dungeons&Dragons. The PBM aspect allowed to reach people over the distance in space, with physical envelopes, and the rhythm of a turn per month allowed for participation over time, even though regular and current commitments might keep people from taking part now or tomorrow, or from traveling to a convention where they might have had a more intense experience. The RPG aspect allowed for much deeper immersion for a longer hunk of hours at a time for all those living in a region with a game master, in my case north-east and south-west of West Germany, around Brunswick and Tuebingen. The USP at the time was the idea of continuous world-building, while the fantasy-PBM market leader "Welt der Götter" (WdG) and its epigonal copies (like Atolls&Cornucopias, which went into a much smaller, more relatable detail with the map) were more busy opening new continents than bothering with the question where those were exactly on a world map, or where those continents went which were discontinued. And making the Guardians of a continent more of a story element (like Tom Bombadil) than proclaiming each to be the god of that continent, which estranged some christian players. Being a better WdG was the original raison d'être, which explains the naming: World of Hexagons (we're doing a proper simulation here, and religion a game element not something the GM sets) (WdW) was similar sounding in name by choice, just as the first fantasy gaming wholesaler and mail-order specialist was (Welt der Spiele, WdS) * Growth came 1983-1986 when "Welt der Waben" became the official game for the EDMC fan club of the pulp fantasy series Mythor (Mythor-Serie). Efforts to place WdG, the previous front-runner, as the official Mythor-game for a competing Mythor-fanclub VDMF failed, for lack of compatibility and because of the first-mover advantage, which lead to the publishing company Pabel accepting MYRA as the "official twin planet" identical up until a point in their planned story line which was then still in the future (Allumeddon). This meant every story up to My139 was useable background material for us, as is every element of the world in later novels described as being there before that point, i.e. nearly everything. It also gave us and them the option to cherry-pick: They could use from out "520 years later" present-simulation-time material what they wanted (some authors used that to a point) and disregard the rest. Our main simulation continents did not feature in their story, story-based continents where not included in the simulation before the series ended in 1986/1987. Instead of folding at the end of the series, it allowed fans and fan-club members to invest fully into expanding the existing material and writing their own, as debating the ongoing series was not a point of interest anymore. PBM players could become PBM game masters and/or PRG game masters. Consequently from the start, RPG action used to center around PBM game masters physical location, and expanded only slowly from game masters moving to a different town for university or job reasons. The fanclub brought a number of extra regional hubs, around Frankfurt and around Nuremberg for example. * Maturity came from 1987 to 1989 with the first Tuebinger MYRA-TAGE 1987 (five years later subtitled Tuebinger Tolkien-Tage) as a big press-attention getting event, with live swordfighting in the court of Castle Hohentuebingen and several events streched over days, several clubs taking part. Founding of VFM as a club. These years also saw a bunch of new continents opening up, attracting new players in the regions of the new game masters and beyond. PBMs became a commercial option with automated computer resolution of player turns, which where still mailed in with a stamp. The first book publishers featured the scene, Myra/Welt der Waben featured prominently in professional and semiprofessional gaming magazines and the first mass market book ("Spiele per Post", Dumont-Verlag) on the topic, which made it into many public libraries via the high-brow-to-mainstream publisher's access. This continued to reach gaming and worldbuilding enthusiasts for years. * Decline came 1989-1990, a steep fall after some game masters had to quit for the time restraint their new position (in or after university) brought, and after a split of some game masters and their players to form a competing world, which for a time seemed fresher, unrestricted by those over five years of tradition and that idea to preserve the integrity of the world map. So much so, that 1990 did not even see an annual MYRA-Treffen planned in September. What preserved it from disappearing there and then? Tradition and customer loyalty! People from EDMC and around showed up for the regular annual meeting, that had neither been announced nor planned, but was still expected to happen because, after all, this is MYRA, which always goes on. We thereby managed to get into a new growth phase again: * New Growth 1991-1992 - with loyalists supporting a growing marketing presence on fantasy gaming conventions from Hamburg (STARD/NordCon) via Hannover (Hannover Spielt) and Bonn (FeenCon) to the big Game Fair in Essen (SPIEL), now advertising to the large RPG community a game world for them and by them, which could be played between RPG sessions and power-wise often started where RPG campaigns would end (with a castle, town or crown in the player's possession). * New Maturity 1992-1997 - the the first rebranded Tübinger Tolkien-Tage, with more participation from literary societies (EDFC, Inklings) and established cultural institutions (German American Institute d.a.i.), with first attempts at the up-and-coming Live Action role Play LARP for Myra- attracting dozends in forests and hundreds around a castle (Steinsberg is still continued indepently nowadays, Auria is still lingering around here). Founding of VFM e.V. as a nonprofit chartered society. Massive convention presence 1991-1993 brought a swath of new people who brought their friends and wanted to be entertained or to entertain others if faster interaction was required. Reichsspielleiter were introduced as an idea, leading to a dozen or more people per Spieler even in some small countries like Thersland or Marthog (with less than one hex per person each). At the same time, we started our online presence and Myra was new in a new field, like the FIDO:Fantasy community with the Myra-Mailbox and the Atari-centered MAUS-Netz for new players with the Atari-using Corigani game-master Oweron von Sapiru. Myra started to use the computer from the outset in 1982, for a bubble-sort database of people and places, and the Amiga from 1987, email from 1991 (before the WWW), a first website from before the Netscape browser was invented, but was late in developing a full computer simulation engine for WdW with Promy 1996-1998,1999. Unable to keep the many players occupied on classic PBM turnover, a bunch of computer games and computer databases was released in this period, from quizzes with 4-in-a-row functionality to simple online adventures and Imbris as a text-based Multi-User-Dungeon (MUD/MUSH) with a Myra expansion giving Myra-players a first online roleplaying virtual world. Nostalgia also brought back some old mature Myra-gamers, who had been part of the first growth or maturity phase. * New Decline 1998-2003 - Failing to meet ever-rising expectations in the same speed those rose, Myra lost people, both to other games (LAPR and Magic the Gathering Trading Card Game being noteable) and to other time consumers, including jobs and family. Having two daughters in that time I can relate. 1996 the high point as yet meant that 1999, while still high and active, saw much less activity and a swift change in the VFM board, partly because of a lack of my own availabilty. 2002 MYRA-Tage were the least ambitious yet. * Small New Growth 2004-2007 - starting again with the convention circus with the help of Aori, Myra reached out to new players, mostly roleplayers (but then so did World of Warcraft which became the dominant force later on, with a hundred million accounts registered by 2014). Adventures around the Green See (German) was laaunched as a long-running campaign that managed to keep the world running when not much else did, and to include a new face which stayed now and then. * Small New Maturity and Decline 2008-2015 Yes, there was life. On months when nothing else happened, at least there was MyraPedia, growing and getting some attention, some participation There was the second MyraForum for veterans to check what has happened since, but more and more continent boards were gathering dust. Karcanon and Karnicon only managed to stuble out of these years still going forward, with some of the old players. 2012 Myra-Tage was ambitious and planned big, but as an indicator failed to attract the masses. The concept of offering Myra players and VFM members that "shared gaming experience" on other worlds which were functioning better - which unlike MYRA had a browsergame - (Kampf um Mittelerde KuM Miloth, KingsTale, Runes of Magic, Game of Thrones Ascent, even Howrse) led to continued bonding of a core of VFM members and Myra-players, but distracted from the co-creating of our own shared world, while failing to attract more than a few new people in our own project. * Small new Growth and maturity 2016-2018 - turnaround 2019-2020 to real new growth? smaller cycles indicating that the life cycle would reach an end if now new turnaround, rebranding and retargeting of a new segment of both activists and players is not reached. The growth is small and mostly dependent on returning activists and on the new project members having one or more influencers, i.e. people who beyond the screen flicker in their own room reach out to and attract others, of which some as well reach out and attract yet more new people. 2017 Tübinger MYRA-Tage/Tübinger Tolkien-Tage saw again a lot of interest, media-wise and from the audience, though we could have catered for a bigger audience had they come it was good and a good point to start the new growth from. For me that meant putting out more of Myra on Facebook (in other groups as well), and more of the old printed material into MyraPedia. We need at least a small but sustainable growth and to enter into a new growth phase with force (all the force a hand full of volunteers can muster) in order to get to a higher point from which the project can survive more phases of decline (and can survive myself, which is definietely a goal). Using the 3 Elements for Creating the Right Culture for Employee Happiness from the Zappos founder's blog (continued from the recommended reading book of the same name, Delivering Happiness), this world needs to invite and create "co-creator happiness", which in turn will help with the re-branded MYRA (for new target audiences for whom it is a new product) to become much more attractive for consumers and players. Rebranding MYRA as a co-created world to adopt: Targeting worldbuilders, con-lang artists and visual artists, to co-create - targeting authors to contribute at least a story - and targeting RPG game masters to make this world their own and get their own players to populate their own corner... which is why I think it's central for the moment to clarify the concept of ownership of MYRA for contributors, old and new, and afterwards churning out both stories and role-playing background material with possible adventure hooks for RPGers to make their own... * (Read Breaking free from the product life-cycle in the HBR for how we could and should go forth from here.) Kategorie:Blog-Beitrag